William Tyndale was a reformer, scholar, and translator whose work has been widely credited with helping to shape the English language. Tyndale was born into a wealthy family at the village of Royston, Northamptonshire, a market town on a Roman road near Northampton. As a child he studied under the tutelage of William Langland, a local clergyman and schoolmaster. In 1494 he became a Cambridge University student and took an active part in the university's religious life
Read more
He was ordained as a priest in 1506 and returned to London as chaplain to Archbishop Thomas Wolsey. After Wolsey's fall from power in 1529, Tyndale became chaplain to Henry VIII. The king helped him obtain his first teaching position at Oxford.
He is commemorated as one of the martyrs of the Protestant Reformation by having one of his teeth preserved and displayed at St. Peter ad Vincula in Tower Hill, London, where his remains were later interred.